3rd February Trinity 2016, Coming to Light

February Trinity

(5th Sunday before Easter)

Matthew 17: 1-13

Transfiguration, by Theophanes the Greek, Wiki Commons

After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother of James and led them together up a high mountain apart from the others.

There his appearance was transformed before them. His face shone bright as the sun, and his garments became white, shining bright as the light. And behold, there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, conversing in the spirit with Jesus.

And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be in this place. If you wish, I will build here three shelters, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them and suddenly they heard a voice from the cloud that said, “This is my son, whom I love. In him, I am revealed. Hear him.”

When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces to the ground in awe and terror.

And Jesus approached them, and touching them said, “Rise, and do not fear.”

And raising their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them: “Tell no one what you have seen until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”

And the disciples asked him, “What is meant when the scribes say, ‘First Elijah must come again’?” He answered, “Elijah comes indeed, and prepares everything [restores all things]. But I say to you, Elijah has already come, and the people did not recognize him, but rather have done to him whatever they pleased. In the same way the Son of Man will suffer much at their hands.”

Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.

February Trinity

(5th Sunday before Easter)

Matthew 17: 1-13

Here in the west one can look out over the ocean from the mountains. Later in the day one can gaze out upon a sea of light so white, so piercingly bright that one wonders how one can look at it at all. The living waters shine like the sun.

In our lives, too, there are events and moments that are piercing; they may be moments of happiness or of pain; but they remain in our memories forever. In Jesus’ life this is one of those moments. On the mountaintop, Christ, the great being of the Sun, descends so far into him that his living body becomes ‘shining bright as the light.’

With him are two witness in the spirit, Moses and Elijah. They are conversing with him about his coming death. And the three earthly witnesses, Peter, James and John, perceive this living, light-filled, light-emanating body in awe. And further the Light is deepened into the voice of Love; they hear the voice of the loving Father of All. He claims Christ Jesus as His son, the revelation of the Father’s own being. The Father’s Love reveals itself in the living light form of a divine human being. Christ, ‘the son born in eternity’, reveals the Father’s light and love on earth. The poet says:

Transfiguration, Lewis Bowman

…we hear the great seas traveling

underground,

giving themselves up

with tongue of water

that sing the earth open.

They have journeyed through the graveyards

of our loved ones,

turning in their grave

to carry the stories of life to air.

….

We have stories

as old as the great seas

breaking through the chest,

flying out the mouth,

…

all the oceans we contain

coming to light. *

* Linda Hogan, “To Light”, in Seeing Through the Sun

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2nd February Trinity 2016, Embracing Suffering

3rd, 4th February Trinity (Sunday after Ash Wednesday)

Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the loneliness of the desert to experience the tempting power of the adversary.

Jean-Marie St. Eve, Wikicommons

After fasting forty days and nights, He felt for the first time hunger for earthly nourishment. Then the tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, let these stones become bread through the power of your word.”

Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘The human being shall not live on bread alone; he lives by the creative power of every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the parapet of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Again a third time, the devil took him to a very elevated place, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give to you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me as your Lord. “

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship [pray to] God your Lord who guides you and serve him only.’”

Then the adversary left him, and he beheld again the angels as they came to bring him nourishment.

3rd, 4th February Trinity

Blake

February 14, 2016

Matthew 4:1-11

Christ was the God who had never before lived in an earthly body. Forty days after his entry at the Baptism into the body of Jesus, he feels for the first time the hunger for earthly nourishment. The body shows him the overwhelming nature of the thirst for existence. This is the thirst for existence that Buddha had warned that humanity needed to be overcome in order to avoid suffering.

And it is this thirst for existence that gives the adversary access to Christ Jesus. Yet Christ manages to maintain his equilibrium between heaven and earth. For he came, not to avoid suffering, but to embrace it.

He refuses to magick up bread for himself. Instead, angels nourish him in the sphere of life. He refuses to succumb to pride in his own uniqueness as Son of God. He sees through the delusion that the Prince of this world could give him earthly power and glory.

Instead, he is faithful to His Father and to his own mission. He does not flee the hunger and hardship that being in a body entails. He chooses, and will continue to choose to embrace suffering, the suffering of all humankind, because he loves us. He chooses the hard road.

In so doing, Christ laid the seed of possibility within each of us. We can see through the delusions of the adversary. We can overcome pride and maintain our trust and connection with our heavenly Father, who holds our unique destiny and purpose in his hands. We can embrace our own suffering as a necessary step along our own path. And we can embrace others in their suffering through Christ’s love. 

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1st February Trinity 2016, Selfless Selfhood

1st February Trinity

Van Gogh

Matthew 20: 1-16

[But many who are last will be first, and many who are first will be last.] The kingdom of the heavens is like a man, the master of his house, who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. Agreeing to pay them one denarius a day, he sent them out into his vineyard.

At about 9 o’clock he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace, and he said to them, “Go also into my vineyard, and I will give you whatever is right.” So they went.

He went out again at about noon and at 3 o’clock and did the same. At 5 o’clock he went out and found others standing there, and he said to them, “Why do you stand here all day idle?” They said, “Because no one has hired us.” He said, “You, too, go into the vineyard.”

And when evening came, the master of the vineyard said to his steward, “Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.”

Those who had been hired at 5 o’clock came forward, and each received one denarius. Therefore, when it was the turn of those who were hired first, they expected to receive more. However, they too also received one denarius each. They took it, but they began to grumble against the master of the house. “These men who were hired last only worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”

However, he answered one of them, saying, “Friend, I am not being unjust to you. Did you not agree with me for one denarius? Take what you have earned and go. I wish to give to the man hired last the same as I give to you. Have I not the right to do as I wish with what is mine? Or do you give me an evil look because I am generous? Thus will the last be first and the first will one day be last. “

1st February Trinity

February 7, 2016

Matthew 20: 1-16

This gospel reading about the day’s wages is often used to illustrate the idea of social justice. And it is indeed that. But it can also be explored on another level.

We are all of us sent from heaven to fields of earth, to work here for the Master, the Lord of the Harvest. Some of us have arrived early and labored long. Some of us have been sent more recently. But each of us laboring toward one goal – the Lord’s harvest of human virtues, grown here on earth.

And in the end, our reward, our ‘one denarius’, is the earning of our own individual selfless selfhood. Some must labor long and hard; others seem to achieve it with what only appears to be less struggle and effort.

A part of what Christ is trying to tell us here is that a desire for a greater reward than another runs counter to the ideal and goal of selfless selfhood. Demanding more in comparison to others is not selfless; in fact, it is spiritually counterproductive. The harvest the Lord is trying to bring in will be the selfless virtues of all of humanity.

Those who have worked longest and hardest to achieve them will rejoice for the others; for we are all working together toward the same goal. And the Lord of the Harvest is generous.

4th Epiphany 2016, Heal the Earth

4th Epiphany

John 5: 1-18

Christ Heals at the Pool of Bethesda

Some time later, there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem, near the Sheep’s Gate, a pool, called Bethesda in Hebrew, which is surrounded by 5 covered porches. Here lay a great many invalids, the blind, the lame [crippled], the weak [withered], waiting for the water to begin moving. For from time to time a powerful angel of the Lord descended into the pool and stirred up the waters. The first one in the pool after such a disturbance would be cured of whatever ailment he had.

And there was a certain man there who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and became aware that he had been ill for so long, he asked him,

“Do you want [have the will] to become whole?”

The invalid answered him, “Lord [Sir], I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Rise up, take up your pallet, and walk.”  At once the man was healed and picked up his pallet and walked.

               

However it was the Sabbath on that day. Therefore the Jewish leaders said to

Picking up the Pallet

the man who was healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your pallet.”

But he replied, “The man who healed me said to me, “take up your pallet and walk!”

And they asked him, “Who is the man who said to you ‘take it up and walk’?”

But the one who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, as there was a crowd in the place.

Later, Jesus found him in the Temple and said to him, “Take to heart what I say: Behold, you have become whole. Sin no more, lest your destiny bring you something worse.”

The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that Jesus was the one who had healed him. That is why they persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath.

Then he himself countered them with the words, “Until now my Father has worked, and from now on I also work.”

Then they sought all the more to kill him, because not only had he broken the Sabbath, but also because he had called God his own Father and had set himself equal to God.

4th Epiphany

January 31, 2016

John 5: 1-18

Originally God’s creation was filled with an abundance of life, overflowing with healing, strengthening powers. Crowds could bathe in healing waters, for a thousand angels lived in them. But by the time Christ walked the earth, the healing forces of nature had worn down. The pool at Bethesda was only attended, intermittently, by one angel, enough healing force for one person at a time. And sadly, often without help, those most in need were unable to avail themselves. 

Christ came to initiate a new form of healing. He healed the man directly, lending him the creative power of His word. He healed from His I AM power, from Self to self.

Christ still walks the earth; we just don’t see Him. He can still heal, but it is now we human beings who are his instruments, His hands, his speaking. And now, 2,000 years later, what is called for is not only the healing of ourselves and of other human beings. What is becoming more and more necessary is that we find ways of healing the earth.

As St. Paul says, “…all around us creation waits with great longing that the sons and daughters of God shall begin to shine forth in humankind. Creation itself and therefore everything in it is full of longing for the future….”* It is now we who are to give life to the earth; we who are to heals its wounds; we who are to redeem the damage we have done to her.

How do we give life and healing? With God’s help, through our time and attention; through the power of the creative word our prayers, through our loving devotion to her well-being and our sacrifices on her behalf. Teresa of Avila** said, that even when we ourselves feel wounded, God helps.

…God is always there….  He kneels

over this earth like

a divine medic,

and His love thaws

the holy in us.

*Romans 8: 19 -21

** St. Teresa of Avila ~ When the Holy Thaws, in Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West --versions by Daniel Ladinsky)

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